Was waiting patiently for 290 reviews all night and read several. What a read this is.

This here is THE card to get. The value and performance is off the charts. AMD 290 performs better than nvidia Gtx780 in almost every case and you can overclock it for even more coming up towards 290X numbers. The new review AMD drivers made performance through the roof. AMD 290 also is right there with $1000 wallet-buster Titan.

And $400! Finally we get amazing value and beastly performance at a good pricepoint.I was considering the Gtx780 but with this beast from AMD nvidia needs another $150 pricecut on GTX780 down to $350 otherwise it is $400 AMD 290 in my rig allday. $400 Beast!Reply

And, water cooling bumps the price up at least $75 for the block, assuming you have an existing pump and radiator that will take the added load.

It is the only card to get IF you don't care about noise or are willing to spend a significant amount of money to get rid of the noise, don't care about G-sync, don't care about PhysX, and don't care about Shield compatibility. Me, I'd rather spend $500 on a card that doesn't give up those things and doesn't force me to change the cooling solution.Reply

The IF isn't so big, I think. A lot of gamers already have blocks for their graphics cards, or don't care much about the additional noise, or want a block anyway at some point and the 290 presents an opportunity to get one now (and then cooling is quieter/better than the competing nVidia cards for the same price when figuring in the watercooling costs for the AMD card). I'd rather get the 290 (over the 780) and use my current watercooling solution. If I didn't have watercooling then I'd still rather buy the 290 and upgrade to watercooling.Reply

That's really extremely one sided, first of all, AMD already has a response to G-Sync, (their version for now has been dubbed "Free-Sync" but no idea if that nomenclature is final) and they have TressFX (which, at the moment, does look better than Nvidia's "Hairworks" but Nvidia will probably soon catch up), and they've got Mantle, which is definitely a massive advantage.

Not to mention the R9 290 comes with 4GB Vram, as opposed to the GTX 780's 3GB, though it's really not a huge issue except in 4k gaming. Finally, shield compatibility isn't really a benefit, it's a $250 handheld game system, it's only beneficial if you interested in purchasing one of those, as opposed to being an included feature.

Nvidia is not without it's advantages however, they still have lower power consumption and thermals which is great for mini-itx systems (although manufacturer custom cooled cards can help bridge the gap for thermals) and they do still have Physx.

If Mantle keeps going the way it is now, Nvidia might be forced to pay royalties to AMD similar to how they did with Intel a few years back. If anything, AMD should throw "Allow us to use Physx" in the negotiations :)Reply

O yeah, Nvidia at this point has no choice, but to lower its prices again. I mean for $400 this card is amazing. It performs on the same level as the $1000 Titan and on the same level as the $550 290X, so a giant performance at a very cheap price.

Even with the high noise(just wait 2 weeks for custom cooler) this card blows the GTX 780 out of the water, the performance is so much better.

I think if Nvidia wants to stay in the competition they would need to cut the GTX 780 price to at least $400 as well and try and get sales due to better acoustics and a lower power consumption, but if it was just performance in question they would need to lower the price of the 780 to $350 or 300 euros.

Of course that would mean that the 770 should get a price reduction as well and be around $270.Reply

I doubt NVIDIA will cut their price. This card is so loud that most people will stay away and get a 780 or 770. AMD is so desperate to increase performance that they sacrifice everything else. It's like the last sad days of 3DFX.Reply

Actually, traditionally, 3dfx was overpriced until the very end. ATI was always there competing with nVidia and 3dfx, anyway.

So competition existed for as long as we've had discrete GPU's in any meaningful way. It's AMD that wants to end competition by standardizing PC gaming high performance around a GCN-based API only they can use meaningfully.Reply

the new AMD drivers are insane! 290x is speeding past Titan now and 780 is a turtle while 290x is a ferrari... the new 290 is performing like the 290x was at launch and now the 290x is a card unto its self at the top of the food chain

rofl. So NV just has to release a "fan that drives you out of the room" driver now to respond. IF NV did this all of you would be falling all over yourselves to moan and groan claiming NV was cheating. AMD does it, and wow this is awesome, I love the noise anyway...LOL. Technically this is all NV has to do though right? Raise the fan speed until it hits another 10DB's and blow them down again.

Perf is great, but not if it drives me out of my room. There is nothing stopping NV from adding 10DB's to their cards and calling it a day. But I don't want this being called normal. IMHO this is a crap way to get perf and a game both sides can play. If NV does this tomorrow and says we're hiking prices because if we overclock our cards also (which is essentially what they're doing here, just reverse, raise fan so clocks boost higher, same story) we blow AMD away.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djvZaHHU4I8Both cards clocked to max (290x vx. 780, NOT TI mind you).Fast forward to 8:40 for benchmarks...AMD is blown away. The 780 didn't lose ANY game. Not one. And in star citizen blows AMD away. I don't believe these cards will be used mostly on 1600P or 1440p either. 1080/1200p is running on 98.5% of our screens and a large portion of the 1.5% that is above these two resolutions are running TWO or more cards. Steam's surveys don't lie. Already they turn down nearly every game at 1440p here which to me means you won't run there anyway (they are not reporting mins here for most games). Everything is pretty maxed in linustechtips vid above at 1080p, and you should be able to stay above 30fps (probably?) doing it. They are reporting avg's here at anandtech and already turning stuff down. Meaning maxing graphics on a lot of games would be unplayable under 30fps especially when lots of crap is going on. LOW DETAIL? Seriously? So Ryan is assuming you'll buy one of these cards (or any single gpu card) to then go out and buy a 1440p monitor (which are still over $550 for any brand you'd recognize the name of on newegg, and start there when you choose NEWEGG ONLY) and then run the details on low to play games? I don't think so. If he's assuming we're all going to buy new monitors, might as well get Gsync instead (though I'd say wait for more models first even if Asus has a decent one out of the gate). Heck some of the games have details DOWN on 1080p here (total war2, medium shadows? still looks like it would hit below 30fps on most cards).

For anyone saying get a water block...LOL. How much did my card cost if I have to add that and how many regular users even know what water is or are even capable of adding one? I say that as a guy who has as Koolance kit. Or even adding an aftermarket fan. Isn't this upping the cost of the card then?

Both solutions are unacceptable and attempting to fix a problem caused by shipping a card that already is unacceptably NOISY, hot and sucking up watts vs. it's competition. No games either.

So maybe you need to take a bit of a WIDER view than anandtech ;) I don't call 53 more watts than 780 (or 70 more than 770) a victory. Never mind the noise it creates while doing it. Is running 10DB's higher really a better card? Do people here realize that noise in DB's is EXPONENTIAL? A 10Db noise difference is HUGE (ryan did say 2x as loud). 12 degress hotter for this kind of perf isn't good either. I see a clear reason NV should be charging more than AMD's cards. They are better. I can OC and beat them easily without all the noise, heat, watts. I don't need a waterblock to do this either...ROFL. Whatever I already have on my card can do this easily and come in UNDER Ryan's 7970 noise levels that he calls acceptable.

I see no price cuts, but probably a few more videos poking fun at AMD like this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV5vs27wnCATell me that isn't funny ;) I'm wondering if someone at NV paid for this vid to be made...LOL. Sparks, dripping fire, ROFL. Great job of getting the message across.Reply

so i'm happy. and with the exception of skyrim i could set the graphics card to 10% fan profile and max the game. i run quite afew mods for skyrim don't play it anymore.but i can see how the noise can be a major issue for a lot of people.Reply

120 decibels is a 747 I would know I work around them, But AMDs new cards are crap, 550$ to add a water cooling system totaling around 200-300$.......either way its not a deal really, Nvidia cards have more headroom on air and water, while AMD's cards are impressive to an extent Hawaii is a bastard step child of sorts, it is probably a failed version of the next chip to compete with Maxwell but had no choice but to release it.Reply

I love you use steam surveys to justify comparing the cards at 1080p because "1080/1200p is running on 98.5% of our screens" and then reference a review that benchmarks based on bleeding edge overclocks of each GPU...Reply

well, while it may be true that an overclocked 780 is about as fast as an overclocked 290/X, it is also true that under water a 290/x will blow away an OC 780, and that the cost of a waterblock more than compensates the price NVIDIA asks for a 780. it may well be true that most of 780 and 290 buyers are running it at 1080p, it only points towards how irrational/stupid enthusiasts can behave, i am speaking as a 1600p gamer whose games do not demand more than a 4870x2 but has upgraded to a 6950 and then to a 7950. There is one point in favor of the 290/X that all your whining can not deny: THESE CARDS ARE 4K GAMING READY. We are ending 2013, and buying a new card today may well mean that one will use it on a 4k display over the next 2 years.Reply

''buying a new card today may well mean that one will use it on a 4k display over the next 2 years''

Or simply means that one will use it to continue maxing graphics no 1080p for the enxt 2 years... like if new gen consoles and games will not make graphics improve so 1080p will never ever be a challenging resolution for 2 years old graphics card... sigh...Reply

It looks like you and Anand almost see eye to eye, GeForce fan boys. If I remember correctly the GeForce 480 [and 470] fan was very noisy in an effort to keep the HOT GPU from melting down, along with may be part of your motherboard.

Well, as long as your PC is in sound dampened closet with a usb extension cable and your dvi/hdmi cables comming out of it, yes, this is an amazing card. But I certainly wouldn't want something that is in the mid 50db range in my bedroom or office.Reply

I've got to agree that the 7970 at the current price is the bargain hunter best deal. If you run 1080p monitor and even above, you REALLY can't go wrong. It usually performs better than GTX 770 and can be overclocked like... Anyway, you get the point.Reply

I get it that being quiet is a nice feature... but it's way at the bottom of my list. I want the most frames for the dollar followed by thermals and then power usage. Then, way under that, I care about acoustics. The article sure fusses a lot given that AMD very rarely makes quiet coolers. The aftermarket cards will all sport more efficient dual/triple fan setups... or silent water blocks...Reply

Basically this, if 3rd parties make custom PCBs with custom VRMs, you probably won't be able to affix a waterblock, because they are usually built for reference designs.

To the guy who says "he's focusing too much on noise" has no idea what a fan at 60 DB sounds like. Basically, take an industrial fan, and point it at your face, and turn it on medium. Or, drive with your windows down at 45 MPH. It's distracting. Reply

I don't know about you, but I have my PC under my desk about 4-6 feet from my face. I think AT measures decibels at 12 inches. Even if they measure from 24 inches, that's a HUGE difference in perceived noise in real life. Between deflection, pitch, and attenuation, these decibel measurements are a waste of time in many applications. It's good to have objective data to compare, but unless your PC is sitting right up on your desk next to your monitor about the same distance from your face would it be distracting... and only under load... assuming there were no other sounds coming from your speakers (silent gaming?).

Come to think of it, my HTPC is stored in an AV closet (totally silent) and my other HTPCs are hidden away and not audible. This card is amazing despite its SPL.Reply

Wait for the new custom coolers, improved fps with upcoming drivers like any new products that takes time to adjust. Another comment about a crappy AMD cooler, like if anyone of us didn't know it's crappy, you had to fanboy comment about how crappy it is, I ALREADY got it from reading the review thanks!

''Basically, take an industrial fan, and point it at your face, and turn it on medium. Or, drive with your windows down at 45 MPH. It's distracting. ''

Drive your 100k$ car right in a wall, destroy it, it's annoying. Everyone knows that, how obvious life can be sometimes. Another comparison that sounds as stupid as can be. PS I was sarcastic about the car, don't do it... while the guy above thought he was serious... OMG

Wait for aftermarket coolers, Nvidia got amazing launch results cauz they have very good coolers, this is already AMAZING and that's with the WORST cooler EVER, 2 weeks from now everyone will be in exctasy with the superb Asus DCU II or other amazing silent solution that will allow for overclocking.Reply

Not sure how to interpret your analogy. Heat is measured in watts (energy) needing dissipation. This card is running up to 95*C while drawing around 50 more watts of power than a 780 . The 780 while drawing 50 less watts of power is running up to 80*C. Out of the gate the heat sink on the R290 is going to have to be at LEAST 20% more effective than the current 780 heat sink, and this thermal excess is still being pumped into the case.Reply

Well as I can see you are rather unfamiliar with power leakage due to temperature... anyway I won't get into the subject, I'll let you google it. Getting a card to run a lot cooler at the same frequencies can reduces power usage depending on how bad it affects certain node.

A 20 degree celsius difference can have a great impact on power usage which I think might turn the tide around. In 28nm design, power leakage has been a bigger problem than before, probably a reason why Nvidia has been using better reference coolers thus, enhancing the performance/watt for the last generations of video cards.

With the card in the case, with headphones on, with sounds/music from the game playing, hearing the 290 or any card would be tough. I know what loud video cards sound like (I owned the 4890 with a single fan design, and I always ran the fan at manual 40%-50% speed for gaming), and when playing a game with headphones the sound is barely audible and definitely not distracting. Reply

A reference 570 if not cleaned regularly(once every two months) goes easily up to 62 db. GTX 480 went up to 64 db(brand new) and Nvidia fans praised it even if AMD fans were saying it was loud, nothing new in here... Nvidia fans once said that 64 db is ''nothing'' for a good performing card... Look at them now speaking and whining about the same situation, really fun to see the tides turn around...

That was in a time when reference coolers where much more used and represented a MUCH bigger % of the market, I would never buy an AMD reference cooled card. Nvidia fans started to care about noise and temperature when they got the 600 series out and for the first time had an advantage.Reply

I used to think that too, until I actually bought a loud HD4890. I ended up having to get an Accelero, which made it dead quiet. My current NVidia based card is also really loud, but I fixed that buy underclocking it most of the time. Really loud cards are just not fun to deal with. I'd wait for third party cards to come out with better cooling solutions.Reply

Except that it's hot, noisy, and basically pointless to overclock because it's as loud as a medium party without music. So as it is, it's a bad card.

However, since it's only $400, one could go out and buy a water cooling setup and have a card faster than the 290x for about the same or less money. For Titan money, you could get a second 290 and add some more rads to your setup. The thing is...if you do want to OC (and why wouldn't you with water cooling?), you'll have to dissipate over 800 watts of heat...Reply

Such a dramatic decrease in price makes me feel like that both AMD and Nvidia were essentially ripping us off with the previous generations. I'd like to know what their profit margins were, and what they are now. Either way, I appreciate the seemingly competative pricing coming from AMD this time around.

$550 for 290X was a little outside my price range, but I can do $400. I shall be waiting patiently by my phone for until I get a notification that it is in stock.Reply

You are probably right. Still just leaves a bad taste in my mouth knowing that I paid so much for the previous generation, and that they are willing to cut launch prices but so much.

I re-read the review after my head cooled down a bit and am now a little more concerned about the noise level. It isn't a deal-breaker for me, but it is a concern. I may have to wait for the non-reference coolers to come out before I take the plunge.Reply

Just wait 2 weeks for custom cooler cards and this card is a beast. I mean it will probably be even faster with a natural OC on custom cooler cards, so add 4-5% more performance on top of the current one and lower noise levels at $400 and you have yourself a winner.

I'll be waiting 2 weeks(hopefully less) and getting one with custom cooler and hopefully factory OC. I mean right now it pretty much beats Titan in half the games, with a factory OC and better cooler it going to come close to beating Titan at almost all the games.

So wait two weeks like me and get a custom cooled 290, for $400 its an amazing choice, I might consider getting a GTX 780 though if Nvidia lowers its price to $400 as well, so with 3 free games at $400 it may be better worth, but as of now the 290 is the king.Reply

Simple economics...NV doesn't make as much as they did in 2007. They are not gouging anyone and should be charging more (so should AMD) and neither side should be handing out free games. Do you want them to be able to afford engineers and good drivers or NOT? AMD currently can't afford them due to your price love, so you get crap drivers that still are not fixed. It's sad people don't understand the reason you have crap drivers is they have lost $6Billion in 10yrs! R&D isn't FREE and the king of the hill gets to charge more than the putz. Why do you think their current card is 10db’s higher in noise, 50-70 watts higher and far hotter? NO R&D money.

NV made ~550mil last 12 months (made $850 in 2007). Intel made ~10Billion (made under 7B 2007, so profits WAY UP, NV way down). Also INtel had 54B in assets 2007, now has 84billion! Who's raping you? The Nvidia hate is hilarious. I like good drivers, always improving products, and new perf/features. That means they need to PROFIT or we'll get crappy drivers from NV also.

Who's raping you...IT isn't Nvidia...They are not doing nearly as well as 2007. So if they were even raping you then, now they're just asking you to show them your boobs...ROFL. MSFT/INtel on the other hand are asking you to bend over and take it like a man, oh and give me your wallet when I'm done, hey and that car too, heck sign over your house please...

APPLE 2007=~3Bil profits 2013=41Billion (holy 13.5x the raping).Assets 2007=25B, wait for it...2013=176Billion!bend over and take it like a man, oh and give me your wallet when I'm done, hey and that car too, heck sign over your house please...Did you mention you're planning on having kids?...Name them Apple and I want them as slaves too...LOL

Are we clear people. NV makes less now than 2007 and hasn't made near that 850mil since. Why? Because market forces are keeping them down which is only hurting them, and their R&D (that force is AMD, who by the way make ZERO). AMD is killing themselves and fools posting crap like this is why (OK, it's managements fault for charging stupidly low prices and giving out free games). You can thank the price of your card for your crappy AMD drivers

Doesn't anyone want AMD to make money? Ask for HIGHER PRICES! Not lower, and quit demonizing NV (or AMD) who doesn't make NEAR what they did in 2007! Intel killed their chipset business and cost them a few hundred million each year. See how that works. If profits for these two companies don't start going up we're all going to get slower product releases (witness what just happened, no new cards for 2yrs if you can even call AMD's new as it just catches OLD NV cards and runs hot doing it), and we can all expect CRAP DRIVERS with those slower released cards.

AMD finally made a profit in the last year 1/2 this Q (only 48mil and less depending on if you look gaap, non-gaap). AMD has lost over 6Billion in 10yrs. They are not charging you enough. I expect them to lose money again as they owe $200mil to GF Dec 31st which will wipe out last Q profit and kill this Q also. See the point? They need to make money. How is it possible for either side to be ripping us off if neither has made as much as they did in 2007 for 6 years with AMD losing their collective ARSE?

I could give you the Hard Drive makers profits etc and would show the same (or worse) as MS, Apple, Google. The flood allowed them all triple profits (quad in Seagates case). YES, this is ripping us off.Reply

Your comment is nothing but an exercise in ambiguity. So basically what you're saying is that because Nvidia's drivers don't work perfectly for every user, AMD's drivers are superior. Really?

The one sentence that's actually applicable to gaming is just about as vague as you can get, maybe because you don't actually know what you're talking about? Bluescreen, really? Okay... And from an end user perspective wtf does it even mean to program a driver? Are you suggesting you're something more than an end user? Are you suggesting you work for Nvidia? lol...

Whatever driver related bsod problems you were having is unlikely to be systemic, and may not even be driver related at all. Almost all of the Nvidia driver issues I've read about in recent memory (past couple of years) have been isolated incidents that may result in instability for certain users, none of which I've experienced myself (GTX480). Optimizations compared to the competition have been spot on, and title support has been fantastic. The only exception I can think of was the fan controller issue a couple years ago. Compare that to AMD's recent driver issues (xfire, surround, 4k, frame pacing, etc), all of which are systemic and widespread. I think most AMD fanboys choose to either ignore these problems, or accept them as the norm (same with fan noise on stock coolers), which is stupid and self defeating in my opinion. That sort of attitude doesn't drive AMD or Nvidia to improve.Reply

I'm talking from developer's point, can you even read? You probably have no clue about programming if those sounded ambiguous and you even suggested that I work for NV, lol.

I don't say that AMD's drivers are superior, but I can surely say that "NV drivers are superior" is one big lie. They are both bad, really.

I can tell you some fun things about AMD's drivers too: like, uploading textures of certain sizes crashes them, or how their OpenCL compiler crashes on certain C99 features. But those are just program-level crashes (not system-level) and I see texture crash only in recent beta versions, not the last stable version; haven't really investigated OpenCL ones. On the other hand I can reliably send NV drivers into bluescreen, but as already said, it's quite obscure feature and simple users have very low chance to stumble upon it.

Conclusion: we do love AMD for their performance/price ratio while there is nothing to love NV for except being mindless fanboy. My personal view of current situation, feel free to disagree.Reply

Yup, customs coolers will fix both the noise levels and temperature issues. After that, this card will be a must buy. 2 Windforce 3x (dual slot) and $699 780Ti is irrelevant. In fact, after-market versions of R9 290 will make 780/R9 290X and 780Ti very overpriced. They can't get here soon enough.Reply

Well, what the review fails to take into account is that for the vast majority of the card's lifetime, all or nearly all the cards actually sold will be using third-party coolers which are much better than AMD's halfhearted effort. All the noise measurements are completely irrelevant once Asus and MSI get their hands on the silicon and start releasing custom cards.Reply

And then there's the disturbing revelation on Tom's that retail cards are underperforming AMD's reference review cards by a significant margin. But it's AMD, so it's okay.

I mean seriously, could you imagine the uncontrollable outrage there would be if Nvidia tried to pull something like this? There would be an uproar from the community unlike anything the interweb's seen before. But if it's AMD? Largely silence, driven by either indifference (AMD fanboys), or AMD fanboy appeasement (confrontation averse reviewers). We wouldn't want to directly oppose the AMD fanboy agenda, lest we have to deal with yet another uproar from AMD's zealous fan-base, which occurs whenever a reviewer says anything remotely negative yet entirely relevant about an AMD product (Bulldozer, HD6990, R9 290, etc...)Reply

I've been watching this battle since the Radeon 8500 Geforce 3 days.. and to be absolutely honest with you.. don't matter what amd or Nvidia does fanboys will rage against the rival. It's the way they are... (shrug)

Both companies have had their fair share of tricks btw.. (just in case you didn't know that or had forgotten)Reply

Uh, definitely haven't forgotten, otherwise there would be no context for the vastly different reactions I'm referring to. And honestly dude, I think you and other people who refer to the fanboy situation on both sides being the same are just displaying your own ignorance and unfamiliarity with the situation. I've noticed that despite how bad it can get here, I've never seen it get even remotely close to the norm on Tom's. It's gotten so bad at times (Bulldozer, HD6990, recent buyers guides, etc...) that the authors and reviewers have had to address the AMD fanboy situation directly in forums and comments. To which the zealous AMD fanbase becomes even more enraged, even resorting to malicious personal attacks against Chris, Don, etc, demanding to know why Nvidia/Intel fanboys are never addressed directly in the same way. Well, because they don't behave the same way... lol.

When you genuinely believe that any author who doesn't conform to your inherently biased agenda is biased and bought out, and you adamantly defend that belief (over and over again) with childish and at times downright offensive remarks directed at both the authors and other readers, then it's not something that can be ignored. It never ceases to amaze me that despite how often they're thoroughly shutdown, and lose practically every argument they start, they still press on. They just ignore and continue. In fact if anything it seems to give them strength and further cement their delusional beliefs. They're an endless source of astonishment, those AMD fanboys, I'll give them that much.Reply

It's really strange what AMD has done with the 290. Sure it has great price and performance, but AMD has also ramped it up in the key complaint areas, power and noise to get there. As a result, the performance of the 290 is close enough to the 290X that you have to wonder if AMD even wants to sell any 290Xs at all. They are hard enough to find to begin with, but at a $150 price difference for ~5% difference in performance, it seems as if AMD is cannibalizing their own SKUs and dissuading people from purchasing the 290X and choosing the much cheaper 290 instead. It also comes close enough to the 280X while thoroughly stomping it to make the 280X seem much less attractive in that $300-$400 range.

In the end the 290 seems like a strong buy for anyone who is willing to tolerate the heat and the noise. It's amazing that the 290 is even hotter and louder than the 290X, even taking the crown from the previous high-end, noisy fireball GTX 480 (thanks for including it in these results this time btw). It's certainly possible AMD wants this SKU to sit by itself in that $400 slot, safely away from the 770/280X below it and the GTX 780/290X above it.Reply

The GTX480 is not the previous 'noisy fireball'. AMD has introduced many cards since that make the 480 seem downright reasonable. Take the 6990 and 7970GHz for example. AMD has gone so far and beyond Nvidia in terms of heat and noise it seems comical to still hear people talk about the 480 as though it's some kind of benchmark to compare these cards against. The stock coolers on these recent gen high-end cards from AMD have been much louder.Reply

LOL, I too remember the term Leaf Blower being used with the FX5800 for the first time. A friend had it in his rig and we couldn't stop bugging him about it. This was coming from another friend who have three 80 mm Antec Tornados in his case!Reply

Agreed that the 480 was probably not as loud, it's fan had issues but didn't have the same high pitched whine characteristic of AMD's blowers. But it was the previously hottest, highest power consuming single-GPU and as an owner of 2 in SLI I can say for sure the heat was a lot to deal with.Reply

Now think about this:290X with new drivers, and proper cooling enabling it not to just "not throttling" but also to get some minor oc. The difference will be much bigger. That's why nvidia must go all the way with GK110 unlocking to make the 780Ti a viable competitor.Reply

Or NV can just OC their cards until they hit another 10DB or 50-70watts and laugh right? This is all AMD has done. Why didn't AMD just include this magical fan in the ref design? Overclocks show there isn't much in the tank either. Don't forget they're using NV ref here also. You can buy OC cards that are already clocked 10%+ faster out of the box and reviews show they are quiet in comparison which NOBODY buys.Reply

The way I look at it, AMD is looking like an absolute genius. Everyone was ripping them on the 290X for it being too hot and too loud anyway. So instead of keeping the sound levels down they just went for what they do best, price/performance. They are now blowing every other card out of the water. There isn't a card on the planet that can touch this card in price/performance. Yea its loud as hell but, at least you have to think about it now just because of the price. What I really want to see is them unleash the 290X sound threshold and see what kind of raw numbers it can put up. Lets be honest, the only people who should buy reference cards are the ones who are putting water blocks on them.Reply

Ok, fine, the reference cooler sucks. But we all know that sooner rather than later there will be several versions with non-reference coolers available. So instead of get 106% of a 780's performance for $100 lees, we will get it for $70 less. (and possibly some more OC headroom?)Any way you slice it, AMD has done a service for all of us enthusiasts no matter if you're an NVidia or AMD fan... The price/performance has come back down to earth. I will be buying one of these cards, no doubt. But I will be waiting to see what Sapphire or Asus come up with as far as cooling or I may just drop for a 3rd party cooler and a reference board.Reply

Spot on. People continue to focus on reference GPU performance but unless you have a cramped case (which you shouldn't really have with such premium components) or are going quad-fire, using a reference cooler is almost always inferior to open-air dual slot designs with heatpipes and larger 80-100mm fans. Reply

Yup, there have been some cards (EVGA 780 w/ ACX cooler) that have benefited tremendously from special dual-slot coolers. That card was highly overclocked, ran cooler than reference, and was 95%+ of Titan performance. It was also only $10 more than the base 780.

It just makes no sense that AMD has to flash around their reference cooler for 2 months with a shoddy card before we, as consumers, can buy a decent card that isn't just for looks (cooler shroud, anyone?).Reply

This makes Nvidia's price drop, well looked over. The price/performance ratio of the 290, is quite well and back down at practical levels. AMD has done us all a great doing, saving our pockets from being emptied by the hungry Green men. Reply

Agreed - I consider myself an old school PC builder. If my rig doesn't sound like a prop plane taking off when I press the power button I am doing something wrong. I come from an era where a nerd's worth is measured by the number of case fans he has on his PC. I thought builders that put fan controls on their rigs were sissies. It's all or nothing - on or off, don't you turn down the speed.

That, and any self respecting gamer uses a good set of headphones => noise is pretty much irrelevant, at least IMO.Reply

Most serious gamers are likely to be using cans with some form of sound isolation or cancelling. Even my crummy $10 Sentry cans can cut about -10dBA off, which is surprisingly good for semi-open backed headphones.Reply

I'm kind of surprised there haven't been more AMD fanboys in here accusing Anandtech and Ryan of bias and being bought out by Nvidia. What's going on? I can usually tell the time by you guys. I feel sort of insecure now, you guys are shaking my faith in your profound and reliable idiocy.Reply

The AMD fanboys know that there was no way of disguising this launch as anything but a complete miscalculation on AMD's part. If they'd done anything less than what they did, well, they'd have seemed AMD biased. This is their cover. The more important ad dollars purchase will be a positive review of Kaveri, which should be coming up soon-ish.Reply

That's interesting to say, in light of the very obvious free advertising grabbed by AMD employees who have jumped the gun when the NDA dropped and have grabbed the first comment on a pretty big handful of AMD product launches.Reply

The reference cooler is the only downer about this card. Anyways, I think every reasonable human being was expecting this to be $450.... so great job AMD!

BTW, Anandtech, I'll take the heat & noise for that performance & price. Another great review by you guys. I respect you guys for giving us you honest opinion during this review. Best on the net ;)Reply

Haha, spoken like someone who's never heard a card this loud. I can't wait to see all these cards on sale on ebay and forums everywhere. "I tried it and it's not for me, sidegrading to a 780," they'll say.

This card is so loud you're going to be shocked by it. It's going to blow people's minds and it may even convert a few fanboys.Reply

You're forgetting they are using ref NV also. You don't get that when you buy an NV card and they come overclocked on top of quiet. Also this thing will draw the same watts no matter what. It remains to be seen how good a different cooler will actually be. Did AMD really choose two terrible fans for their product launch? Seriously? I'm wondering how much they can really fix this situation. AMD had to know this would cause bad reviews about noise nearly everywhere and even on AMD loving sites. I can't believe they are completely dumb, and chose a total piece of junk for the fan/heatsink here. I really think people are putting to much faith in a fix with a fan change. They are at 95 all day basically, how much fan do you need to fix that?

If NV runs their gpus at 95 tomorrow (and cranked up even more to meet the noise they're getting here) these cards will both be spanked. You get a better cooler on NV cards that are NOT ref also.Reply

The way I look at it, AMD is looking like an absolute genius. Everyone was ripping them on the 290X for it being too hot and too loud anyway. So instead of keeping the sound levels down they just went for what they do best, price/performance. They are now blowing every other card out of the water. There isn't a card on the planet that can touch this card in price/performance. Yea its loud as hell but, at least you have to think about it now just because of the price. What I really want to see is them unleash the 290X sound threshold and see what kind of raw numbers it can put up. Lets be honest, the only people who should buy reference cards are the ones who are putting water blocks on them.

People have been saying this about the temp since launch, and I still don't get it. If AMD designed the chip to run at those temps, what's the big deal as long as it's not damaging it.Reply

It will only get loud for me when playing games or the occasional benchmark. During games I wear headphones, and during benchmarks I can leave the room. I have a room dedicated to computer use and the house has good sound proofing, so, it will not bother other people.

If I want it quiet I will use a water cooler with a large radiator and fan.

It is better than dumping all the hot air from the video card into my case, even if it is well cooled with 200mm fans. I overclock my CPU and I do not want it, RAM, or chips on the motherboard to get any hotter than necessary.Reply

The burning question on my mind at this point is why AMD is restricting board partners from releasing their own custom designed and obviously better performing coolers on this otherwise fantastic card? Reply

It's okay. It's tough doing thermal management. I cram 1,000w of LED into a 30mm x 30mm space. AMD doesn't have the cooling problems that I have. Nor does nVidia nor intel. They should be grateful. :DReply

They don't have them yet. That's why they haven't made custom boards. They're just getting them right now. They're going with what they have, which right now are just the reference boards. In a month or so, they'll have QA'ed some solutions with pre-existing cooling options, assuming said cooling options are good enough to benefit these cards.

The thing is, you have to know these cards are running REALLY, REALLY hot to hit these levels at 95 degrees, so... custom coolers may have a hard time handling these cards without some tweaks. Perhaps to get faster fans on there.

Also, it takes time to redesign a board to add VRM's and the 290 and 290X are still very, very new. You're not going to get an MSI Lightning version overnight.

It's a solid deal in price, but man it's a shame AMD didn't offer a better custom cooler more attuned to the very special needs of the 290 series. It's also a shame their board is being pushed so hard and so much above what it seems capable of doing with reasonable power levels.

AMD could have just spent a few more dollars and used copper instead of aluminum, I would think. They could have easily doubled or tripled thermal conductivity and thus not needed to run the reference cooler anywhere near as high, plus that would leave a LOT of extra overclocking room.

I still would buy it for the extra $45 that would have likely entailed, though I do worry about weight at that point. My 9800 GTX+ was pretty hefty, to say the least. Reply

THIS. why does amd, or heck, any manufacturer, insist on using aluminum fins on a 250 watt+ gpu? my old amd 2600xt had a full copper heatsink, and it was nowhere near as power hungry as this card (and it ran cool to boot. never over 47c).use the exact same heatsink, but make those fins copper. wonder how much lower the temps would go?Reply

I agree. My major concern at this point isn't noise or that custom coolers will not be able to dissipate given thermals, but 95*C is a LOT of heat to dissipate into the case. Usually custom coolers are open. It's going to be like running a serious hair dryer in the case. Reply

The 95C figure doesn't matter, only the TDP. This card is by no means in new territory - just in new territory for a stock AMD card with this cooler. A better cooler will still run at 95c if that is the driver and fan speed target, so you will have to rely on the quieter, better, coolers AND custom fan profiles or CCC lower target temperatures. Set the target temperature too low for the cooler and the speed will throttle... so performance will be directly related to the quality of the cooling - which really makes me wonder why AMD didn't consider upgrading their cooler... just looking at their design I can see several ways to improve it for virtually no R&D and very little extra manufacturing cost... a card that has to throttle at stock is a card that needed a little more love before release.Reply

Yeah, I get that part. It's still a chip running at higher temps. while drawing at least 50 more watts of juice. Of course the chip will run fine at 95*C+ temps, my concern is with an open heat sink the amount of thermal energy being dissipated into the case is going to be higher. Better coolers more effectively cool the chip, irrelevant for case temps. Reply

THG got some retail 290x and they perform a lot worse than the review sample so at this point it seems unclear what the actual perf is for 290 and 290x. You guys need to check if AMD cherry picked the review samples,sending cards that clock well and they sell far slower cards.Reply

I'd love it if they'd start testing these cards in some cases. Testing them on open air benches is the best way to ignore the obvious heat that's going to build up in a case that's got one, let alone two of these boards, using passive heat loss to help them.

Boards this hot running continuously need to be in a case to test for how long it can maintain its boost.Reply

R9 290 is a performance beast for its price. Almost nearing its big brother R9 290x. Nvidia's latest price cut won't help GTX 780's further sales now. But AMD's partners need to make this one cooler and quieter.Reply

I never comment on reviews, but I was taken aback by the reviewer's final comments. Presuming on behalf of every enthusiast that the noise generated by this card makes it unacceptable even with such a strong price/performance ratio is odd. Everyone has a different noise tolerance. Judging from the comments, most of us are excited about this card, in spite of the reviewer's final remarks which seem to suggest the card's status as a bad product as objective fact when actually the issue of noise tolerance is subjective. The reviewer doesn't seem to understand that even if the noise level actually IS unacceptable, we're not stuck with the reference cooler for very long. Better coolers will come quickly. What a strange review.Reply

Some of us won't wait for the aftermarket cooler if we want it quiet. We'll rig a water block to it and hook it into the loop. :) Then it will be absolutely silent, the only noise coming from the radiator fans. Three 9,000 RPM Delta fans. ;)Reply

Three Delta Fans. 9,000 RPM. -64dBA. If those don't keep whatever I have attached to them nice and cool, there's something wrong with them, there's a blockage in the lines/block/radiator, or I screwed up applying the thermal paste. :) Also, CPU always comes first in the loop since it's the lower power device versus a GPU. If anything, the CPU would be heating the GPU.Reply

Given how low-power newer CPUs are, no, it makes sense to have the CPU first in the loop as running a second loop does nothing regarding your reservoir temperatures, you're still drawing from the same cooling source.

I do liquid cooling with 1,000w pieces in form factors far smaller than that GPU (try 1,000w in 30mm x 30mm.) Reply

You can't rate a card on speculation on what a custom card would be. You have to rate it for what it is now, and the product being sold today is unacceptably loud. There will be separate reviews for custom cards in the future and they will be judged on their own merits.Reply

Delta blacks are not the loudest. I've got some 80mm and 120mm impeller fans that can fit in a case, and do sound like jet engines, -83dBA at the high end. You can find just about anything in China! :)Reply

What I'm waiting for is for all the GPU makers to catch up to me and start making multi-layered metal thermal PCBs so they can ditch the plastic nonsense and get some real thermal dissipation going. No more need to dedicate some heat sink to RAM or VRM, just use all of that on that GPU and cram more power in there!Reply

I'd be interested to know what your sound level testing methodology is PCPer measured 48.5dB and Techpowerup measured 49dB. I have no idea what PCPer's method is but TPU measures from 100cm with the side of the case open. They both mentioned the card was loud so I'm not crying bias here just interested. [H] said the card wasn't too loud for them at 47% and only got obnoxious at 65%. Reply

Though on a subjective basis all the testing we do means I'm listening to the card for hours on end while the case is fully closed up, so anything that loud when the case is opened for sound testing is still loud even when closed up.Reply

Is the volume level noticeable, in gaming, with game audio on at a reasonable level, with the case closed and the distance being around 4 foot (assuming the computer is under the desk and your head is looking at a monitor on top of the desk)?Reply

This is the case for reference designs, i wouldnt expect that custom designs will suffer from noise and heat issues, as an example, 770 GTX reference temp under load is 80c, i have 770 gtx Gigabyte OC windforce3 andi have never seen the GPU temp reaching 65.

290 for now is the best bang for the buck, gr8 job AMD, and for us, it means another price cut from Nvidia which is the best part in these competitions. Reply

I think there is too much critic made on the subject of noise. You get a water block and the problem is solved. And you also pay less money for this combo, than what you would've pay'd for a GTX780.But, the thing that really strikes back from this review, is the unused potential of the 290X. Just imagine how it would run unlimited by its cooling system. I think it could hold its own against the comming 780Ti from nVidia.And, we should stimulate AMD, because if it weren't for them, nVidia wouldn't ever dropped their prices. Now, they are even releasing the full GK110 core, at a smaller price than Titan.Reply

So how many people you think there are running water? Also how much does that add to the cost of my shiny new hot card? Newegg isn't likely to be shipping water cooled cards by the millions...LOL. You are aware this is a REF NV card tested too right?

Tomshardware seems to think noise and heat and how it runs IN GAMES after a period of time is an issue:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-..."On the R9 290X we received from AMD, and in the seven games we tested, a 40% fan speed is good enough to average about 874 MHz. But when you’re actually gaming on a hot card (and not just benchmarking a cold one), our two-minute Metro: Last Light test suggests you’ll be spending more of your time in the upper-700 MHz range. In fact, in some titles, you’ll dip under 1000 MHz before even getting out of the menu system and into the action (Arma and BioShock).

You could call that questionable marketing. After all, the only way you’ll actually see a sustained 1000 MHz is if you either let the R9 290X’s fan howl like a tomcat looking for action or play platform-bound games."

How fast will these be after running a few hours in game? Or even 1hr? Most won't purchase water for any gpu so they'll be dealing with it as it is or with a better fan at some point (assuming OEM's get them soon):"AMD’s scheme undoubtedly suffers a lack of clarity, and after piling praise onto the R9 290X’s value story, I now have to hope that Nvidia doesn’t follow AMD down this muddy little rabbit hole."

I hope they don't follow AMD and release a driver tomorrow doing the same crap too. But if I was them that is EXACTLY what I'd do in response along with videos everywhere explaining this should not be done, "but we have to do the same crap the other guys pull to beat us and when pulling this crap, you can clearly see there is no reason for us to drop prices agian" :) Or something like that...LOL. I really think AMD is going to be hurt by people buying the first rev and complaining all over forums about their silent PC (or nearly noise free) sounding like a jet engine now. Also as toms points out, are people really going to get the full perf while playing for longer than COLD periods that reviews bench under? A lot of people game for HOURS and they noted it slowing down even in menus before even playing the actual game. How does this card affect the rest of the temps in your PC during hours of playing? How does a gpu temp of 94 affect the PC vs. 81 for NV? I'll take 81 thanks.Reply

The simple fact is, whilst incredibly fast, this baby needs modding with a better cooling solution. Early adopters are usually hit the hardest, so I'd recommend waiting until customised cards hit the shelves. A GTX 780-style cooler would be very interesting indeed.Reply

And certainly you must account for the possibility that expectations and tolerances change over time right? Read the 580 review and you will see he says it is basically "Fermi Done Right", setting the new standard for high-end temps and cooling. The 580 design put a ring on the fan to reduce the whine on the fan, so to go back to something as shrill and annoying is easily understood as taking a step in the wrong direction.Reply

To add to that, there was a time 60mm and 80mm high RPM fans were the norm on CPU coolers, no longer, I could never stand for one of those high-pitched coolers again now what we are spoiled with 120mm/140mm CPU fans or multiple fans on radiators.Reply

At those resolutions they're more likely to be held back by ROP throughput. Keep in mind that both cards have 64 ROPs, and that the 290 is on average clocked higher than the 290X. So the 290 actually has at least marginally greater ROP throughput than 290X.Reply

About as fast as the many overclocks around the web show. :) Not much faster than that. If by proper you just mean a better fan/heatsink set up. I don't call water proper. If that's what it takes to run "proper" you need to redesign your chip.

With 780 vs. 290x overclocked to max they could get 780 won every benchmark:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djvZaHHU4I8Both ref designs, benchmarks at 8:40 or so, so proper cooling won't change much I don't think. You will just get less noise or heat, they already run max at 1075 OC'ed as they show here in the 290 review even. You might end up tied or something with 780 (assuming an OC'ed card with better fan gets 5-10% better) but it's not going to blow your mind and a NON ref fan would get more on 780 over what linustechtips vid shows also."Similarly we didn’t encounter any throttling issues with our overclocked settings, with every game (including CoH2) running at 1075MHz sustained."Above from the OC page in this review. It was never throttled and nobody on the web hit higher than 1125 in a review so you're not going to get much more than anandtech did without maybe water or something.

Amazing performance and value from AMD. This seems just like the GPU for me, since my PC sits in the "server" closet and cables are routed through the wall to my room. Also, amazing compute performance, which is mostly what I need, I might be getting this to replace my aging 470.Reply

Hi Ryan,the review is generally very well done, and I 100% agree with you the at 150$ price difference, the 290 is basically eating into 290X terrirory.

However, the 290X is clearly an super-enthusiast product, headed to an audience that rarely will not overclock the card (replacing its cooler, maybe with a water block). For this audience, loud/power are rarely of any real concern. So we should consider that, while 290 is very near to 290X, the latter has its "uber mode" to be used. Moreover, as the 290X has a lower voltage, and so an higher efficiency, raising the fan speed even above the 47% threshold should give higher performance boost in respect to the 290. HardOCP did a test with a 290X and a >60% fan speed, and performance was quite higher the "normal" uber mode.

Moreover, while I agree that "loud limit" is a personal affair (and my limit is quite low!), it seems that AMD cooler has a not-so-disturbing pitch. To quote another review:"Subjectively speaking, there are much more annoying coolers in this territory on the decibel meter. The impressively smooth, gradual ramp of fan speeds up and down in the new PowerTune algorithm helps make the noise less noticeable, too. This ain't an FX-5800 Ultra, folks."

Had you the possibility to hear, side-by-side, the new 290 against, say, a 5870? What was more disturbing? It will be fantastic if you can post a wav/mp3 file recorder at normal distance and closed case...

Anyway, as my "GPU performance ego days" are very far away, I think that Nvidia solution retain some strong appeal to silence-lover.

Some constructive critisism: You can't measure the power of the whole computer and then run a full page on how the 290 draws more power than the 290X.That can be down to any number of things, like the CPU load being higher because of the different VGA load or the computer just deciding to do something in the background, which the later Windows releases loves to.Techpowerup isolates the card when measuring power, their numbers are here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290/24.h...Load GPU voltage for the 290X measured at a coil is 1.14v, for the 290 it is 1.17v, so very similar to your card but entirely different power consumption numbers.Reply

This review makes me appreciate what a value the 280X is. At $300 it performs admirably in games at 1920 x 1080 where the majority of gamers reside. It has much lower noise than the 290 (46 - 50 under load) and temperatures less than the GTX 770 under load. $100 price differential between the 280x and the 290 is not insubstantial to a budget gamer. The 33% increase in price from the 280x to the 290 is rewarded with a 20% increase in performance (approximately). The 280X is the sweet spot for a budget gamer.

AMD's competition with Nvidia is an awesome thing for the consumer. Too bad they can't challenge Intel more. I would like to see Intel cut their extreme edition chips down from $1000 because AMD released a killer alternative. Reply

I would agree with you if the 280X was actually a re-spin of the Tahiti silicon and included TrueAudio and whatever other IP and low-level changes come with the Hawaii die, just with Tahiti configuration and speed. Unfortunately it's not, and is already out of date.

I was hoping that the 290 would be the perfect solution with all the newest features but cut down to reasonable power/temp/noise limits - but that is not to be. Maybe they need a 290L.Reply

I thought most people bought custom cooler highend cards these days anyway, unless you're on water. The reference cards don't seem to last very long, if you look on newegg for current cards like NVidia 7 series and AMD 7970 etc, most cards on sale are non-reference models. For some models you cant find a reference model. Personally, I haven't bought a reference blower cooler for a couple of generations, even the "quiet" versions are much louder than a good non reference cooler like Twin frosr, Asus DCUII or Sapphire Toxic and Giga Windforce.Reply

Dear ASUS, MSI, XFX, HSI and others.I usually purchase AMD to help them stay alive.You have until Christmas to come up with a 290X card using a Nvidia 780 style cooler, or even a water cooler unit by default.Else i will make due with a GTX 780 and their better bundle of game.Reply

blowers are not inherently bad, take a look at HIS ICE Q reviews for the 7950 and you will see that as long as the TDP is compatible with the cooler, blowers can beat open air solutions in temps and noise. Reply

Great card for the money. If you can't live with the noise then obviously it's not the card for you, but I think the majority of serious gamers who would be buying such a card probably are going to be able to live with the noise by using headphones which they probably would be using anyway for the sake of voice communication while they're playing, etc. Or you can spend the money you saved and get a good aftermarket cooler that will be quiet and you'll still have great performance for a good value. Reply

Quite simply, Anad is WRONG on the noise level. 57dba is a considerably higher measurement than recorded by Hexus and Guru3d (my prefered as they put noise levels into context) while [H], Techp. and Bit-tech all say its much the same as the 290x and in no way a deal breaker.

I agree completely. You can pick up this card and a full-card waterblock for less than the total cost of a 290X, and you still get nearly 100% of the performance of the 290X out of the box. Add in the overclock and silence of watercooling, and there's literally no reason for anyone with a water loop to buy a 290X.Reply

Running a single loop with this card linked in is going to add heat that needs to be dissipated and those fans on the radiator aren't usually silent. Silent water cooling is still kind of an oxymoron. Granted it will be quieter than reference cards, however cards with after market cooling solutions should offer a fairly quiet choice. Reply

Ryan.I usually like your reviews. But this one feels like a review of AMD's reference cooler. I think it fails to demonstrate the full potential of this GPU IF it was properly cooled.Tom's hardware have a nice demonstration of what Hawaii could be with a custom cooler installed on their 290. In short: it blows away everything.Hawaii in a monster, may be too much for AMD's cooling crew.Reply

With the release of various water blocks for the 290(X), could you test to see what the effect would be with a proper cooling solution that makes the cards not throttle so much - it'd be good to see what would happen if these GPUs actually had a proper cooler on board.

Nevertheless, I expect down the line, this provides an amazing opportunity for OEMs down the line to put on a proper cooler - but more importantly, shouldn't AMD get their act together and put on a first rate cooler like the greenies have done?Reply

Acoustic dampening cases will make everything quieter. However only to a certain degree, if you have a 60dB Delta fan in the case, it will still sound like jet engines even if you reduce the noise by half. Also nothing can reduce the annoyance of high frequency noise.

That's why I down graded from HD6950 to a HD 5770 with my Antec Mini P180 case.Reply

And here's an article referencing NPDs study on the explosion of $100+ headphones.

"Sales of headphones priced over $100 have become the engine of growth in the audio market as a result, growing 65 percent (units) in the first half of 2012 and accounting for 43 percent of all headphone revenue, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service."

Feel free to look at *any* picture from any LAN event and tell me how many photos you can find of gamers not using headphones if you prefer anecdotal evidence.Reply

Thanks for the review, overall the performance numbers are great but the heat and noise add a asterick to every Pro this card has.

Custom coolers will help some, but this card is still pushing out less Performance per watt than team green. Custom coolers will only offset maybe 10% of that noise and heat, which makes this card still, louder and hotter than team green.

What makes Nvidia so attractive are their highly popular proprietary features such as Shadowplay (it's amazing), and shield streaming. I know a lot of you could care less about shield, but it is selling well and receiving rave reviews none-the-less. Those kinds of technologies are what keeps me with Nvidia. I cannot stress how much i love Shadlowplay. Being able to record anything without any sort of performance hit is amazing. And the best part, it's already encoded in h.264Reply

The cooling solutions on these reference cards are simply atrocious, and in my opinion, completely unacceptable. Running your flagship GPU's at over 95c and 60dB, respectively, all while consuming upwards of 400w is nothing short of ridiculous. Taking the performance crown from Nvidia is fine and dandy, but we MUST look at what was needed of AMD to do so.

Call me an idealist, but I guess I'm alone in my thinking that next-gen GPU's should increase price/performance, while simultaneously DECREASING heat, noise and power consumption (not the other way around). Nvidia can just as easily release their GPU's with no noise/heat/TDP restrictions to increase performance, but do we really want our ASIC makers to do this?

I for one DO NOT want to go down that road, and I can't be the only one...Reply

1st -- to anyone claiming that after market coolers will solve the heat/noise issue... you are correct.. but it will come at a cost. Say hello to a $450-$500 R9 290. Only time will tell, but my guess is they will either be mediocre solutions to keep the price down, or expensive (as will need to be to deal with that kind of dissipation).

2nd -- AMD has one goal and only one goal with these extreme price points and that's to get themselves out of this catch 22 situation with mantle. In order for developers to program for mantle, there needs to be a user base. The user base will grow if there is mantle. Release cards that are relatively cheap with steep trade-offs to grow userbase. I feel the next release cycle will have more expensive cards with less trade-offs (noise/heat) and even better performance. It all depends on if mantle takes off which depends on people purchasing these cards.

I love the competition! I really dislike these sacrifices AMD are making to compete with Nvidia. However, i understand why the're doing it the way they are and I hope they're successful with it.Reply

But we vary, there may be something fishy with AMD press cards! It may be that retail makers are making even worse job with reference cooler, but now it is time to wait some good aftermarket cooler cards!Reply

i get that anand cant recommend the card because of the noise. but i think amd is going to sell a lot of these cards because in the end its all about performance and price. plus who buys a reference card anyway? on the asus cards i have owned you can turn the fan to 100% and its silent. some 3rd party card will come out with a quiet cooler that also unleashes the 290.Reply

This card is like a drag race car. Pedal flat to the floor, screamingly loud, burning through petrol, pretty cheap (50W increase - crazy)! The only good thing here is the price/performance shaking things up alittle. NV could also quite happily dump an extra 50W through their cards and we could have to two screaming cards next to each other!

I have an AMD card in my laptop but wouldn't consider touching this card in the desktop unless it had some seriously beefed up non-custom coolers. Let's see what the AMD partners can do to try and tame this beast!Reply

I'd really like to see some benchmarks with this and the 290x under water.

For someone like me that has already invested in building a water cooling setup and seen a few generations of hardware pass through it, the idea of watercooling the graphics card is a foregone conclusion.

The only added cost to me in upgrading the cooling is a few dollars worth of memory and other heatsinks to put on the card since I'd be using a universal gpu block.

I have a feeling that with the thermal levels in check, these cards will probably perform a good bit quicker than they already do (and that much more than the competition).Reply

"At the end of the day the 290 is 9.7dB louder than its intended competition, the GTX 780. With a 10dB difference representing a two-fold increase in noise on a human perceptual basis, the 290 is essentially twice as loud as the GTX 780."

You are incorrect, 3dB represents a ratio of two to one or a doubling of power. Perception of loudness is not the same as sound pressure level or power. An increase of 10db SPL is perceived to be approximately twice as loud.

You're talking about power. Ryan Smith is talking about perceptual loudness. They're completely different. 10db does NOT sound 10 times as loud to your ear. It merely represents ten times as much power.

It is sad when a review is so biased, that the reviewer doesn't appreciate extra performance. If you prefer a quiet card, turn the fan speed down. You are here to review the performance, and while the noise level is taken into consideration, in your final thoughts, you never once say "While the may be loud, you can always adjust fan levels to find the right sound for you." This card, by performance numbers, should have been a very high recommendation, with a note on it being loud. You decided in the review of the card, that you had rather recommend against it, as opposed to being honest. While I tested the card, I found it loud yes, but I also found that if I was an "Average" consumer, who will have their computer case sitting at least 2-3 feet from them, and listening to the audio of a game, movie, or music, that the audio difference between it and the 780 is barely noticed. This is a good review ruined by Biased minded comments. If you are looking for one of the best cards out there, and the BEST value for your money. This card IS it. Bar None. Just to be clear. I am a Hardcore Titan fan, but if I were to build a PC today, this would be the card I went with.Reply

I'd just wait for the ASUS DirectCU II version or something equivalent. Something as hot, loud and power hungry as the old GTX 480 isn't acceptable to me, but drop a couple of those cons and I'd be on board.Reply

Now then, as i was saying its very loud but but i want it whisper quiet, so buzz off else where then. your 2cents here is not appreciated.

as a CFx7970 owner (not to mention i had 2xgtx670's just before that which 1 became DOA and yes just as loud as current GPU's) i can safely say - noise is NOT a reason to be placing the whole argument onto when deciding about price/performance wise when there are sooo many different things you can do to reduce the noise generated from your case - if your unwilling to then obviously logic dictates that you would NOT purchase this, clearly.... but but i still wanna compare my 6 month old GPU to this one....... of course you can junior.... of course you can...

Custom coolers will come and will reduce the temps/noise, maybe not by a massive amount, but maybe just enough to convert some of those green boys over!Reply

I am a older gamer at almost 50. I have had many cards since my first 3DFx card. Both AMD/ATI and Nvidia have been in my cases. I have a 1440p monitor but also game at 5040x1050 eyefinity.Currently run 2x7950 sapphire flex boost cards. They run relatively quiet as I have a empty slot in-between the cards.

I listened to some of the sound clips of the 290/x and they reminded me of my 5970 that I ran before my 7950's. I swore I will never have anything that loud in my pc again.

Will wait and see what the custom coolers bring to the table as I am hoping to go to one card even though I know I will lose some performance. Or just wait for 20nm.

I was over at my cousins and he showed me his new 780gtx with the acx cooler. Mild OC and it was extremely quiet.

I will play with either red or green cards but I do know that I will pay 100 bucks for the noise diff of the 780gtx.We will see.Reply

Everyone who says "just use headphones" probably doesn't realize that these AMD cards are so loud that they would actually be quite disturbing to anyone else in the room, and in the case of Crossfire, probably your entire house or adjacent apartments. 2x 290X's in CF Uber mode are approaching vacuum cleaner levels of noise.

Not recommending these cards due to noise is not 'biased' it's merely a common sense, practically based choice.Reply

Agrred ive played with the 290x and unless you keep your pc in the other room defiantly hold out till the aftermarket cool is here otherwise youll be pissed and havto spend another 50 on aftermarket cooling once available.

Also a lot of people hatng on the 780 forget one thing..that it overclocks better than the 290/290x flat out...it also have the option for custom bios which in return will boost the 780 above the 290 and do it at a lower power comsumption/noise/heat

Also to crossfire the 290 you will need a min. of 1000w psu as we ran intoissues with 800w psu's during testing with crossfire and heavily overclocked cpu's.Reply

Power consumption will be identical while performance will be down, so efficiency will be slipping and 290 will have all the same power/cooling requirements as 290X.

The above statement I feel is an over-simplication.

I would imagine the actual instantaneous clock-for-clock power consumption will actually decrease due to the lower computation units. However, R290 or R290X cannot sustain their boost clock and are nearly always throttled by their thermal limits. Hence, the practical power consumption is similar, and since at the same power output R290 would have to have a higher clock to match the speed to R290X, the theoretical efficiency is somewhat lower, but I don't think they differ by much.Reply

Come on AMD, get this beauty out with coolers from ASUS, MSI, Sapphire et. al. and then TAKE MY MONEY ! Please !!!Nothing out there touches it for the price, and AMD have finally sorted out crossfire. I've got a feeling that Mantle is going to shock and awe with it's performance.

I think that the reviewer is biased considering how big a deal they make of noise now, but in the past with noisy nvidia cards it was more like "meh, they are noisy, BUT FAST". Now they are all over "how loud the card is". Reply

I don't remember the exact noise test, but I thought the measurement was taken right next to the card, at the fan... so if you put distance, and a case around the card, it will not be nearly as loud as that. Reply

Why is it so that when a ridiculously loud nvidia card gets released, people go crazy about the heat and noise generated, but when AMD does the same, they only focus on the performance?I do understand that the price and performance for these cards is pretty ground braking, but then again, AMD used to release some nasty adverts about people using Fermi cards. And fermi cards were not even this loud.And considering the fact that the testbed here was probably properly ventilated and designed for hot and fast cards, I believe there is a significant portion of the market, who will buy the card and stick it into a small or badly ventilated or just crammed case and call it a day. And those people will not be able to get the performance advertised here, as their cards will probably throttle a lot more.

But I do love how the roles are switching, only 3 generations ago, AMD's and Nvidia's positions were exactly the opposite, at least in the power and noise, and mostly power efficiency, departments.

We still have to wait for 780ti, but seeing as titan is already having a run for it's money.Reply

I don't care one bit about the loudness of a card. Anything I own has to be watercooled and the custom water cooling block costs the same whether it is from nVidia or AMD. So this card is a win on all fronts. And unless you have to buy reference design without switching to WC, I don't think you'll be disappointed.It's really hard to read 5 paragraphs on noise when that is the least of anyones concerns when buying a video card. People who are concerned with it have custom cooling stuff which is the same for most cards (nVidia or AMD), since most cards are the same. Or they don't care since their other stuff is louder and/or they use good headphones. So I think knocking the 290 for loudness is a bit petty. :)Reply

Ryan, it is interesting to contrast this review to Anand's review of the FX 5800. You sound much more damning for a card that is much cheaper and faster than the competition at a 9.7dB louder, than Anand was for a card that was slower and 13dB louder than the competition back then! Ok, it is not for everyone until it gets custom coolers, but it sure gives you a lot for that tradeoff. The mystery is why AMD does not make a cooler that is worth a damn!Reply

Most people that read your reviews know you are a GeForce fan boy. And, the last page of your "review" tells people not to purchase the R9 290.

In fact, many people purchase this card BECAUSE THEY WANT IT. Let the buyer decide what he or she want in price and performance, and stop poking AMD in they eye with your GeForce stick. If anything give advice to people on how to keep temperatures under control with the least noise possible; but, no, you have to get on your GeForce box and pound AMD ... again. How much do they pay your or your company?

The R9 290 is a great card, and after reading several reviews, know it.Reply

You have to ask yourself is Ryan biased with Nvidia or AMD... or maybe it's simply just his tolerance for noise that is the issue.

Anyway.. people buying these cards will have some options. For me the 95C is a no go as is the noise. Something I'd tolerate until a good aftermarket solution could be implemented. AMD and Nvidia (until their titan reference cooler) have always been a little meh.. with reference coolers. We all know this..

My last two cards have been AMD ones and if I was in the market for a card today I'd go straight for the Nvidia 780. Not because of it's speeds, certainly not because of its drivers, and not because I am a fan. I simply like their kickass reference cooler and games bundle.

Im not in the market though lol. Quite happy with my Radeon 7870.. and not looking to upgrade yet.Reply

290x doesn't make sense when the cheaper 290 performs almost identical. And neither can max out Crysis 3. Gamers are better off waiting for real next-gen cards like Maxwell, and with next-gen console ports coming in 2014 suggests it is common sense to do so.Reply

"neither can max out Crysis 3" what the hell are you talking about?52 fps at 2560x1440 HQ + FXAA77 fps at 1920x1080 HQ + FXAAwith that line of thinking then nor 780 or Titan are worthy since fps diff is minimal

"gamers are better off waiting for real next-gen cards like Maxwell"well, 290 and 290X are AMD true next gen cards, maybe you feel fooled by having bought a 780 for almost 700 bucks and then you feel like Maxwell will relief that pain, or maybe you work for NVidia marketing deparment... for the time NVidia came out with it AMD will be pushing their next gen too, will you recommend waiting then too? so we wait forever then uh?"and with next-gen console ports coming in 2014 suggests it is common sense to do so"you mean to wait for NVidia card to run games that will be optimized to AMD hardware that is inside every next gen console?please go to see a doctor....Reply

If I was in the market for a card I'd wait until the aftermarket cooler designs come out. Should make the noise and temp situation a little more bearable. Still, the proprietary nVidia value-adds like HBAO+, adative vsync, TXAA, etc. are hard to give up for me. It is a hard call. If the 780 was only $50 more than the 290 I'd take the 780, but since the difference is $100....I don't know. Really tough call.Reply

The battle between amd ex ati and nvidia has been around since i was 18 years old and i am 30 now. Over the years i have try a huge numbers of video cards from both companies and the only conclusion is that things have always been the same, nothing change over the years: more or less the same performance and:Nvidia = more expensive cards but more quality cards, lower noise levels lower tempsAti/Amd = cheaper cards with higher noise levels higher tempsPeriod.Reply

Just in time for Xmas! Brilliant. I think the rest of you guys should really avoid this card because of the noise. It is horrendous. Do not buy this card no matter what you do. I of course will buy two of them myself, since they will be totally emmersed in a mineral oil/nano-diamond slurry that can be pumped through a tank in an old ice cream maker I now use as a chiller. All set up in a hand made solid copper tank I scavanged from an old still, and looking quite steam punk with oversized analog gauges and big old hand set revets and such. Not a laptop. Completely silent when the compressor is not on. The compressor really isn't needed for a decent overclock with a few hundred pounds of copper pennies suspended less than an inch above the MB components, bathed in the same nanodiamond slurry. Total silence, except for my gaggle of hard drives when they are on. I have been waiting for you Radion 290, I will freeze your nuggies off, with no sound at all. Ah ha ha (simulated mad scientist laugh) Why pay the big bucks for a little nanodiamond in your transformer coolent when you can use food grade mineral oil and lots of nanodiamonds. Nanodiamonds almost rule for heat conduction. Way way better than metal of any kind. And they lubricate any mechanism they flow through. This is why the very best heat pipes contain nano diamonds in their working fluid. As little as one half of one percent to four percent nano diamond make huge gains in performance. Can't give exact figures if interested look it up.Reply

having read many articles on the noise of this card R290, I have no problem with it being slightly loader than my old 7850. I set at work with an old IBM 4227 DOT Matrix Printer that prints like a Locomotive going by, with the wistle Blowing - that can be nerve and hearing shattering. As for the heat, after 4 days of use, the only problem can be with intense play on games such as Rome Total War II, and Battlefield 4 at highest setting - does get warm. The Sapphire Card I have is fine other wise. The vendors do need something with a better cooling ability. Perhaps, trying Water Cooling, or multiple fan solution. Oh BTW, can be used as a reserve of heat in cold climates during the winter!Reply

I see a lot of performance praise here but I also see that people are not really aware that this thing runs 10 degrees hotter and 7db louder. It might not seem big of a difference in numbers but its BIG!Reply

I installed the Gigabyte variety of this card over the weekend and ran Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3 over a period of several hous while actually playing the games.It sits in a HAF-X case under my desk. For sound I use simple ear buds, sometimes in only one ear because the missus has imporatnt things to communicate at randomized intervals.

And I'm calling bullshit on the noise issues. Yes, there is a clear difference between idle, MS Office and Crysis 3 applications. But at no time whatsoever the noise was excessive or annoying. This may of course be different if you run an open testbed on your desktop.

But for a regular install in a closed case I cannot fault it. In fact, the Gainward GTX 570 GS installed in the Antec P182 case that SWMBO's desktop uss is a hell of a lot noisier.

If I were a conspiracy theorist I would suspect Anandtech was looking for an excuse to sink this brilliant piece of AMD hardware.Reply

"Ultimately there will be scenarios where this is acceptable – namely, anything where you don’t have to hear the 290, such as putting it in another room or putting it under water (...)."

Or the scenario, the one that's neither unreasonable nor rare, which was conveniently left out, namely playing with a headset. I understand, however, that there has to be a balance between more powerful fans and their noise output, especially with cards which typically grew in size, yet reaching a point where both the cards as well as their fans cannot further grow. A truly negative review would have been one where the fan was loud and where it wouldn't adequately support the airflow.Reply

I don't think a lot of people realise how hot this card gets under load. I have a CM HAF XB and an XFX R9 290.

When the card is at 100% load, the existing "fan-temp" curve is insufficient to prevent throttling. I see the temps stabilising at 95 C while the fan is at 46%. As a result clocks throttle down to 662 Mhz. I have to set a custom fan profile that sets the fan to atleast 65% to keep the temps at 85C. Even then, the clocks go down to 850Mhz (a 100 Mhz throttle).

Anything over 65% fan speed is deafening (sounds like a blow dryer and at 80%+ it sounds like a vacum cleaner).

Seriously contemplating putting this under water or getting an after market cooler.Reply

Been gaming since the mid 70's, so fairly seasoned, the review is good upto the point regards noise, then it becomes silly. Most gamers don't sit in the front room playing whilst the wife watches tv, well I don't, plus I like loud, thats why i use a headset, all the time. R290 is going into my i7 4790k, like quickly. Might have to close the den door a little but well... I have a very decent headset, won't hear anything other than the game playing. ;)Reply